Marathon forecast: 7 days out

1st Half: Mostly fine, chance of some pain.

2nd Half: Very heavy pain, walking, significantly longer time than 1st half

PS: No, my running hasn't been going fantastic for the last month or so - holiday stuff, then sickness has meant this morning was my first run in just over 3 weeks.

Chicken pox...not

Don't know if many people in Aussie have had much experience with seeing the actual front line defence of your child's Chicken Pox vaccine working (considering the babies to get it for free are only 5-6 years old now). Living in NZ - where the vaccine is not part of the normal immunisation schedule and hence is not free - I have now had two experiences of the front line defence.

This week is the second time that Ben and Joanna's kindy has reported a number of cases of Chicken Pox among the kids. And this is the second time that Ben and first time for Joanna (now that she is at kindy too), that coinciding with a Chicken Pox outbreak at kindy, they have come down with a headache and temperature for appox. 24hrs, and then been totally fine. And I am concluding this the the outward signs of the immune system in 'attack mode' fighting the Chicken Pox virus they have come into contact with at Kindy.

I am very grateful that because they are vaccinated, I don't have to worry about them getting it whenever it goes around at kindy - no having to stay home for weeks on end (as no doubt they would infect each other) caring for itchy, spotty kids. It has also reminded me that now Naomi has turned 1 - I should go and pay to get her vaccinated against it too!

Happy Birthday to Naomi!

She's one today...the year has gone so quickly! She is still a cruisy, cutey that we all love very much.

More photos on flickr.

MasterChef

Our kids LOVE MasterChef (and Peter can't stand it!). We've been watching the 2nd series of Australian MasterChef. Ben knows George and can recognise and name a number of the contestants! We also have conversations about MasterChef at dinner - Ben and Joanna start discussing whether Peter or My dish that night would make it on MasterChef! It has also increased Ben's interest in getting into the kitchen and helping to cook dinner or bake stuff (he has always liked cooking, but he is now volunteering to help more regularly, plus making suggestions for recipes).

The age of technology

Our washing machine isn't working properly...but it looks like we might be able to save the time/frustration/money of having to deal with an appliance repair man! We bought the machine just under 5 years ago (just before Ben was born), we spent a reasonable bit to buy a machine that would cope with a growing family and so ended-up with a FisherPaykel EcoActive Smart water saving washing machine (one of the ones with the electronic push buttons and LCD display).

This may seem over the top to a lot of you, but the advantage of the LCD display is that instead of us now wondering why it has stopped mid-cycle with water still in the bowl, it has given us an Fault Code - number 37. So we've stuck the this into Google and found out that most likely the problem is just some foreign object (probably out of one of the kids pockets) is blocking the water pump. And to fix it, all we need to do is tip the machine a little, undo 4 screws (on the front right-hand corner) and remove the offending object!

Will let you know what the object is when we get around to taking it apart on the weekend.

Fallen off the face of the earth?

Peter pointed out to me the other day, that we had a all time low of only 2 posts last month. Sorry for the silence. Two major reasons for this were/are:

1. I was on holidays in Oz for a month, so although we had internet access most the time, I was trying to have a bit of a holiday from sitting in front of the computer.

2. I have been crazily busy since we got back (2 weeks ago), trying to get family life in some kind of order - which has been made extra difficult by having Ben at morning kindy and Joanna at afternoon kindy.

I hope to get back into blogging a bit more, but unfortunately there isn't much time for it at the moment.

Spring in the Waikato...

On Sunday I went for a long run and managed to get sunburnt - the sun was really hot and it felt reasonably warm (even if it did only manage to get to 17C for the day). By yesterday morning, we'd got a nasty blast of cold air... it was a decidedly cold 5C and raining on my ride in to work, with snow apparently falling on Mt Pirongia about 20km away. By the afternoon, the sun was out, with more rain in the evening. And sun again this morning.

I think that's spring - if you don't like the weather, wait an hour or two and it will be different!

I guess at least we're not underwater like half of Brisbane seems to be at the moment...

IKEA

We took a trip to IKEA while in Brisbane - I wanted to get some more of their kid's plates - BUT in true IKEA style, we ended up buying a whole house of curtains, some new light fittings, plus a couple of other things (but no snakes!).

Holiday achievements

While we were away, Naomi decided to achieve some of the many milestones that seem so important in the 1st year of life.

First, she started crawling - after a few weeks of skill development, she started fully crawling the day after Peter joined us! (go here to see proof)

Second, she got her first tooth - the day after starting to crawl!

Back...

We're back from our Aussie holiday. Arrived back at 12.30am last night, so today was a bit of a write off (various members of the family only woke up between 8.30am and 10.15am this morning).